Well, as the title states, the monitor stand project is just about complete. We are both very happy with the results and feel like we made a great investment in purchasing these stands.

We went from this:

To this:

The entire transformation was under a week, which included the delivery time for the monitor stands. We ordered them last Thursday and they were here by Monday and we were ready to start building then. My old stand was completely eliminated, freeing up valuable floor space and removing clutter. Now, not only do I have more room for my legs (I can recline my seat now) but there is also less exposed mess to look at. The overall look is neater and the room looks quite a bit larger.

While Keith still needed a stand on his side of the couch (the close side on the picture) he was able to eliminate the awkward stand he had and make a much smaller stand which butted up to the side of the couch. He is still able to reach the reclining handle on his side, and also can comfortably recline in his seat.

His stand extends under the couch for better stability, and he weighted it on the bottom with 110 lbs of lead bricks he got from his dad, which counter balances the weight of the monitor. (I had to put some weight on the bottom shelf of my side table also, but it is hidden underneath) Both arms are quite steady and there is no ‘bouncy’ movement whatsoever.

Keith can also store his keyboard on side of his stand and out of sight when he is not using it, which is an added bonus.

He built his stand out of 3/4” plywood and it is painted black. While we don’t consider it ‘fine furniture’, it is nice enough and looks neat and clean and blends in rather nicely. It will do fine.

I have many people ask how we manage to scroll saw in our home and keep it clean. I think that one of the most important things is to keep only minimal things around. I was never one for knick knacks, and it is very simple to dust and vacuum things frequently without having many things here to collect dust. It is something that is very easy to do if you just keep up with it every time you do some work.

While Keith was finishing up on building his stand, I spent the day drawing up my next projects. I will be able to cut and work on them a bit today (I have several going at once at this point) and I look forward to seeing how they come out. I also did the written instructions for the mouse cheese board that I designed for the magazine and got them sent out to my editor. So it was a good day.

It really feels good to get things in order like this. Believe it or not, we even have a shelf in one of the big closets that is just about empty, so there is room to get some more tools. :D I am going to re-do my shop page sometime soon here and put the updated pictures to show you. I will probably post them here too.

I think it is very important to have a neat and clean work area. There are those who say that “a clean shop is one that is unproductive or never used” but I don’t buy into that. I think that we accomplish a great deal more because we are neat and organized. Besides, it is far more pleasant to work in an orderly environment than to work in a mess. I think it is safer, too.

But to each his own. I know that there are some out there who don’t understand how we do what we do from our living area, but as I mentioned the other day, we all need to do what works best for us. What may work for one person may not for another. I think that is what makes the world such an interesting place.

Believe me – I wasn’t trying to criticize people who have ‘less than organized’ shops! I fully understand that shops sometimes get messy. I sometimes come under scrutiny because people don’t understand how I can work out of my home and not live in a mess of saw dust. When I had a garage to work in, it was never as clean an organized as where I am now.

It does take time to get to the point that we are at. Look for example how many days getting things set up here just for these monitor stands took our of our lives. Changing/cleaning one thing leads to another and then to another and so on and so on. But since we do live here in our work area, it is of the highest priority for us to have a neat and clean environment. Keith and I are both that way, which is good because if one was and one wasn’t – things probably wouldn’t go so well. :)

Last year we built some storage cabinets and it resulted in taking about a week or more out of our lives. You can see it on my blog titled The Project. While sometimes we don’t want to take that time to get things in order, for us, it is necessary to be able to function and keep things going.

Our friend Lee came by yesterday and he was once again amazed that we do what we do out of here and said that when you walk in, if you didn’t see the (clean) scroll saw sitting at the side of the kitchen you would never guess. That makes us feel really good. It is great to know where everything is and be able to find things in a flash. In the long run, it gives you a great level of productivity.

Thanks so much for your comments. I would love to see your storage when you are done (or even a work in progress!) You will see once you get going how fun it can be to have everything in a good place! :)